


as easy as falling asleep

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dimension Travel, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Not Beta Read, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Secret Identity, a departure from my usual fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Peter Parker’s caught between two universes: one where his uncle is alive, and one where he’s Spider-Man. Now he has to figure out which is real.Inspired by the TV-show Awake.





	1. Chapter 1

The gunshot rings in Peter’s ears.

A shout that sounds like it’s torn out of him. “ _NO!”_

Rushing to Uncle Ben’s side, pressing down against the warm-hot-dark- _too-much_ blood already seeping through the plaid of Ben’s shirt. Desperation. Eyes stinging - _don’t cry, Peter, focus -,_ trembling fingers dialing an emergency number, knowing that there’s not enough time.

“Please don’t die,” Peter begs. If Ben dies, it’ll be his fault. The thought makes something inside him go bitter and cold. He feels like he’s about to vomit. 

Ben shushes him. He’s smiling in an odd kind of way. His face has gone pale. “Take care of your aunt for me,” he says. “I love you both.”

Peter’s hands shake. “Don’t say that. You’re not going to die, okay? I won’t let you.”

Ben’s eyes are sad. “It’s not up to you, kid.”

Peter swallows back the lump in his throat.

_It could have been._

His call connects. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“My uncle’s been shot --”

***

The hospital they take him to is white and cold and empty.

A sympathetic-looking woman in blue scrubs speaks to Peter in quiet, consolatory tones - says things like “I’m sorry for your loss” and “dead on arrival” and “your aunt’s on her way”-  and it’s all he can do not to scream.

He clenches his fists so hard that his nails break skin. That doesn’t matter, though; his skin heals itself seconds later.

***

Aunt May’s face is already tear-streaked by the time she arrives to pick Peter up. When she sees him, she pulls him into a too-tight hug. They stay like that for a long time, holding each other.

Peter pretends not to notice the damp spot growing on his shoulder.

***

Going home is hard. Falling asleep is harder. Peter spends what feels like hours staring up at the dark, speckled ceiling over his bed, like maybe if he looks at it long enough he’ll see Ben there.

The world doesn’t feel right. Everything’s all wrong. He can’t hear any laughter drifting through the wall between his bedroom and the master one; there’s no pair of boots sitting by the front door.

His hands have been scrubbed raw, but he can’t shake the idea that he can still feel the blood on them -- hot and wet and sickening.

***

Peter wakes to the aroma of blueberry pancakes floating in from the kitchen and cheerful music from that radio station Aunt May likes to listen to in the mornings. For a brief, wonderful moment, everything’s okay. He smiles into the cool cotton of his pillowcase and lets himself linger in that in-between state that’s not quite sleep and not quite consciousness.

Then he remembers.

His body reacts before his thoughts do. He can feel himself tensing, can feel the way his pulse speeds up and his heart seems to sink in his chest.

He feels like he’s been ripped open. Like he’ll never be happy again. Mostly, though, he feels this heavy _guilt_ that weighs him down, makes the prospect of ever getting out of bed seem impossible. Like trying to breathe underwater.

 _It was my fault,_ he thinks, not for the first time. _I’m responsible for it._

He hasn’t opened his eyes yet. He shuts them tighter, tries to will away the mental image of the man who raised him bleeding out on a dirty sidewalk. The way Ben looked when he realized he was about to die. How the eerie glow of the streetlights had --

Peter’s abruptly cut off from that train of thought by a knock on the door to his room. Aunt May says, voice a bit muffled, “Peter, breakfast is ready.”

She sounds happy.

Peter’s brow furrows. He doesn’t begrudge May her happiness, but he’d seen how stricken she was last night. It’s only been a few hours since they left the hospital. How is she so chipper?

He decides that he’s going to have to drag himself out of bed and do some investigating.

Peter stumbles through getting dressed, nearly tripping when he pulls on his jeans. It’s only been a few days since he was bitten by that radioactive spider, but in that time he’d gotten used to a new awareness of where his limbs are and how to move them. Now he feels as clumsy as he used to be.

_Weird._

He pushes his bedroom door open, pads tentatively over to the kitchen. Braces himself for… something. He’s not sure what. Tears? An emotional conversation about how much Ben had meant to them?

Whatever he expects to find waiting for him, it’s definitely not his uncle reading a newspaper at the breakfast table.

Peter stares.

Ben glances up from the paper and says, smiling, “Good morning.”

“G-good morning?” If his voice cracks a little, Peter can’t be blamed for it.

“Someone’s still waking up,” Aunt May says, affectionate. She walks over to where Peter’s standing stock-still in the middle of the kitchen and ruffles his hair.

Peter’s so confused. But his confusion is quickly joined by a kind of uneasy relief -- he doesn’t know what’s going on, but Uncle Ben is here and alive and peering up at Peter from behind his favorite pair of reading glasses.

He’s not going to question this.

As soon as he regains some semblance of control over his body -- for a while there it feels like his feet are glued to the floor --  Peter walks over to Uncle Ben and basically flings himself at him.

Ben lets out a startled huff.

 _This is real_ , Peter thinks, elated, at how solid Ben is. He’s never really believed in happy tears, but he’s suddenly so grateful for the realization that last night must have been some kind of very realistic nightmare that he could cry.

Ben lifts his arms to reciprocate the hug.

“Hey,” he says, soft, like he’s talking to a spooked animal. “Are you alright, Peter?”

“Yeah.” Peter doesn’t pull back. Not yet. He’s selfish; he lets himself cling onto his uncle a little longer, uses the physical contact to reassure himself that he’s not dreaming. “I’m great.”

For the rest of the morning, Peter basks in the knowledge that what’s left of his family is still intact. He even enjoys May’s pancakes more than he usually does; they taste better accompanied by a buzz of thankful joy.

He catches the meaningful looks that his aunt and uncle keep exchanging when they think he’s not looking, but he doesn’t pay them any mind. He knows he’s acting strange. He’ll behave more normally tomorrow, maybe, when the horror of his dream isn’t so fresh in his mind.

Right now he’s content watching Ben read the news and asking Aunt May for a second serving of pancakes.

***

“I had the worst dream last night,” Peter tells Ned in the hallway before first period. He’s leaning against one of the lockers next to Ned’s, waiting for his friend to grab his chemistry textbook.

Ned shuts his locker and turns toward Peter. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Peter hesitates. He feels like he should tell someone about it -- it had really frightened him -- but something about the idea of actually describing what happened in his nightmare seems wrong. Like saying it aloud would make it more real.

He shakes his head. “Nah, never mind.”

And that’s that. He resolves to put the dream behind him; he doesn’t want to think about it again if he doesn’t have to.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter’s not in the mood to pull his punches. He swings, hard. His fist makes contact with the mugger’s nose. There’s a satisfying crack.

Something dark and resentful curls inside his chest, and as he watches the man collapse onto the ground, a voice in the back of his mind whispers, _Good._

There’s a silence.

Peter looks at the mugger, and then he looks at his fist. All of the fight goes out of him at once, like air out of a deflated balloon.

"What am I doing?” he asks himself.

He sinks down, back pressed up against the grimy brick wall lining one side of the alley he’s in. Yanks off his makeshift mask. Puts his face in his hands and lets himself wallow like this for a moment, because the mugger’s out cold and, anyway, Peter can’t be bothered to think about things like maintaining a secret identity right now.

Not when he's two hours into his impromptu career as a vigilante and no less frustrated with his life than he was yesterday - or maybe two todays ago, he's going to have to find a new way of measuring time - when he woke up back in this universe, the one where Uncle Ben's gone, and his briefly restored happiness had been shattered all over again.

That had been awful. Peter had padded into the kitchen in his pajamas, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, only to stop dead at the sight of Aunt May sitting at the table with a cup of black coffee and a haunted expression on her face. And then the still-rolled-up daily newspaper sitting unread on the counter top.

The realization of it had been like being struck by lightning, or at least what Peter imagines being struck by lightning might feel like: fast, shocking, somehow even more acutely painful because of the improbability of the thing. He'd looked at Aunt May and _known_.

His mind jumped to the simplest conclusion, the opposite of the one he believed moments before: this must be reality, and the other life where Ben still lived must have been the dream. A too-pleasant dream that Peter's guilty subconscious must have concocted sometime between staring up at the ceiling and falling into his REM cycle in order to protect him from the truth.

"Oh," Peter had said into the open air, because he didn't have any other words to say.

Aunt May wiped at her eyes and put on a weak smile. "Morning, Peter."

"Morning."

"I made a few calls last night, arranging some things. You're excused from school for the rest of the week, though you could go back earlier if you decide to. I didn't know whether or not you'd want to go back to your normal schedule right away, after...." May trailed off. Then she looked at Peter, searching his face for some kind of reaction.

Peter smiled unconvincingly. "That's fine."

Aunt May opened her mouth to say something. Hesitated. Closed it again. Finally she placed a hand on his shoulder - lightly, without the same reassuring weight that Ben's always had when he did it - and met Peter's eyes. "The funeral's on Friday."

Peter gave a jerky nod before retreating back to his bedroom, where he unplugged his phone - fifteen missed messages, three missed calls - and typed out some kind of brutally straightforward text to Ned, the gist of which was basically _Yes, I'm alive, but Uncle Ben's dead._

And suddenly he was so incandescently _angry_ \- at the world, at the criminal who shot Uncle Ben, at himself for watching Ben die. For letting him. Peter was also furious at his dreams - at the way they gave him back his perfect life just to take it away again, like a taunt.

For a long moment Peter seethed in the middle of his room, thinking about his anger and his guilt and his shitty luck and...then he remembered the spider bite. The powers it had given him.

He also remembered something Ben had taught him: _with great power comes great responsibility._

Peter remembered all of those things and made an abrupt decision. He was going to be a hero. Going to try to be one, anyway. He would use his weird spider powers, the ones he's still trying to get a handle on, to fight crime and avenge Uncle Ben.

That afternoon he had slipped out of the apartment to buy supplies. He'd need a costume - the quality of it didn't matter, not yet; he could find better materials later - and he was already mentally running through ideas about inventing a kind of web-shooter to take with him on patrols. Obviously his hero persona would be spider-themed, since Peter owed his powers to a radioactive spider in the first place.

He'd gone to sleep exhausted but with a new sense of direction, feeling better for having concrete plans to latch onto. Instead of spending the night staring up at his ceiling, he worked on patching together a suit until he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer and crawled into bed. He'd passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Then Peter woke to the sizzle of bacon in the kitchen and the sound of music from that upbeat radio station Aunt May likes to listen to in the mornings.

He'd darted out of bed so quickly that it would have been almost comical under any other circumstance, but in that moment Peter just felt disbelief-awe-confusion-fear.

His heart sank when he spotted that the chair Ben usually sat in was empty, but then the front door opened and his uncle came in whistling, newspaper tucked under his arm.

Peter bit his lip to keep from bursting into tears.

He sat through breakfast in a daze. His aunt and uncle's concerned looks from yesterday (was it really only yesterday?) returned. This time Peter didn't mind the looks not because of a conviction that the other life had been a dream, but because he was too busy trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

He was ready to abandon his dream theory. It seemed extremely unlikely that he had recurring, realistic, internally consistent dreams several nights in a row. But he also couldn't wrap his head around any other alternative.

Was he going insane? He didn't want to think so. Peter didn't know a lot about psychology, but this thing that he's going through - whatever it was - seemed too _real_ to be fabricated. There were too many details involved, and Peter's imagination had never been able to achieve anything of this scope before. He didn't think he was capable of it.

Being a self-acknowledged science fiction nerd, Peter was familiar with the concept of alternate dimensions, separate universes branching outward like tree limbs, every decision or action causing a ripple effect. And he was also familiar with the idea that seemingly impossible things like alternate dimensions could, in fact, be possible. He was reminded of this every time he watched a documentary about the Chitauri invasion or stumbled upon a YouTube clip of mild-mannered Dr. Banner transforming into an angry, green giant with unbelievably durable pants.

So Peter was willing to consider pretty much any explanation for this phenomenon he's living through. He just didn't have any idea where to start looking for answers.

All Peter knew for sure was that one of the lives must be real, and one of them must be fake - or, if not fake, then it must belong to some other version of Peter, because there's no way one person should exist in multiple timelines at once.

And the terrifying thing was that, if that's the case, Peter has absolutely no clue which universe he belongs in.

He basically sleepwalked through school that day. Sitting with Ned in the cafeteria was especially strange, because even though they were surrounded by a cacophony of loud, teenaged voices, Peter didn't find it as ear-splitting as he had in the days immediately following the spider-bite....

Peter paused. He tuned out Ned's animated spiel about how his younger cousins had dropped and badly damaged his meticulously-built LEGO starship ("Now I keep stepping on scattered pieces of the _Enterprise_ , it's heartbreaking --") and instead focused on something that had been niggling at the back of his mind since the morning he woke up in that universe -- or, more aptly, the absence of something.

He didn't have his powers. Now that he was thinking about them, he missed his heightened senses in a way he didn't know how he could have overlooked earlier. His vision wasn't quite as sharp, the sounds in his vicinity weren't amplified, and when Peter got home that night and gave himself an experimental paper cut, he noticed that it didn't heal right away.

_What's happening to me?_ Peter thought, trying to stifle his rising panic.

When he went to sleep that night, it had been like walking in front of a firing squad. He had laid on his back and closed his eyes and known with a kind of certainty he hadn't felt since this whole thing began that when he opened them again he would be in a different world.

He was right.

Peter sighs and lets his thoughts return to the present. In the distance the siren of an ambulance blares; he hears it over the bustle of people crossing the street and waving down taxis.

The mugger he'd stopped lies slumped against the damp pavement, unconscious. Peter wonders if he should call the cops or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I know this chapter was a bit exposition-heavy, since Peter's trying to figure out what's going on; things will hopefully start picking up soon. 
> 
> Also, sorry if there are any weird typos - I wrote and posted this on my phone, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's an autocorrected word in here somewhere.


End file.
